PotD Week seventh (and final) installment

This is Eliot and his best friend Adeline. I'm not sure what that fancy move is that she's doing. It was very hard to get a picture of both of them without some sort of shenanigan. They greet each other every day by doing this silly face that looks like they are both very surprised to see each other. Then they laugh and run off together.

PotD Week sixth installment

I call this one "Still Live with Corn and Cheese". Get it?! Cause he's eating CORN and saying CHEESE!

PotD fourth and fifth installments

Clearly I'm slacking on the job. I didn't get around to posting yesterday. So here are two today.

This is Eliot in his new bathrobe. He's using his Jedi mind powers on me - "You do not want to put me to bed. You want me to stay up and watch Sesame Street."

Back when Eliot had the flu (late March or so) he spent most of the time either curled up in my arms or curled up in his bean bag with a blanket. In this picture, his temperature was bout 104. You can't tell, can you?

PotD Week third installment

I took this one down in Boca. I'm not sure why I didn't include it in that set of pictures, but I just love this one! It looks like he's having so much fun. Well, ok, it doesn't just LOOK that way, he WAS having that much fun. =)

PotD Week second installment

I've mentioned that Eliot's favorite game is "tent". Well, here he is in one of his tents surrounded by all of his favorite things: Bearbear, Monkey, his geetaur and juice.

Picture of the Day Week!

I have found myself with a bunch of miscellaneous pictures of Eliot that never made it to the general public. I wanted to share some of them so I've declared this week "Picture of the Day Week". Every day I'll post a random picture of Eliot with a brief description. It was hard to narrow it down to seven, but here's the first in the installment.


A couple of weeks ago Aunt Kate and Aunt Gaines took Eliot to the zoo. If he was here, he'd say, "AND Jeremy!" because he never lets me forget the men in his life. This is an awesome picture of Eliot dressed up like a gorilla to commemorate the occasion.

Easter Pictures!

Not much time for a real post, but I put up a few Easter pictures here. More later.

Not quite sure where the connection is here...

Daddy and Eliot were discussing an upcoming trip to the zoo.
Daddy: Isn't it exciting? You get to go to the zoo! I LOVE the zoo! Do you like the zoo?
Eliot: I like ORANGE!!!

Surprise from Japan

Last week we got a wonderful surprise in the mail - a package from JAPAN!! Our friends Margie and Stan sent Eliot a little package. It's not even his birthday or anything! In it was a little rubber frog, which he became fast friends with immediately. Also, there were two little ABC books with pictures for each letter as well as some Japanese writing that I don't understand. Anyway, Eliot has been enjoying these books a lot. In the mornings before he calls for me I can hear him in his bed reading them, "N... Notebook. O.... Onion." There are a few pictures that he doesn't fully understand yet, though. For example, the picture for K is King and the picture for Q is Queen. I don't think the subject of royalty has come up in conversation yet, so he didn't really know what they were. I put the pictures together and tried to explain.
Mommy: A queen is a woman and a king is a man, see?
Eliot: Quizzical look
Mommy: Like, Mommy is a woman, see? Like that queen? And Daddy is a man. See? The king is a man, too.
Eliot: nodding his understanding Mommy is a queen.

By George, I think he's got it!!!

another crisis averted

I was lying in the floor and Eliot was enjoying climbing all over me. The game is more fun for him than me, but I can't resist his little laugh, so I endure. He squeals with laughter as he's about to step on my tummy, then suddenly stops short and his face becomes serious. "What's that?" he asks, pointing at my shoulder. I look. "Oh, that? It's just a piece of fuzz." "Mommy touch it." I pick the piece of lint off of my shirt and hold it out for him to touch. He recoils his hands. "No, Mommy. Put it away."
"Ok, where does it go?"
Eliot thinks a minute. "Uhmmm. In the toybox."
"Ok, we'll put the fuzz in the toybox." So I drop the offending fuzz and we watch it slowly float down. We get back to our game. Eliot's exuberance has returned and he's excited to be climbing on Mommy again, fuzz-free.

up dere

Eliot is walking around the yard with Brian. He doesn't like the feel of grass on his bare feet so he asks Brian, "Daddy pick you up?" So now he is directing Brian around the yard. "Go over dere," pointing at a tree. "Wanna go see the flowers," pointing at the azaleas. "Wanna go up dere," pointing up toward the deck. Brian asks, "you want to go up on the deck?"
"No," Eliot replies, "up DERE."
"Up in the tree?"
"No, Daddy, up DERE!" As he dreamily stares up in to distance, he muses, "Up in da sky. With da clouds. And da birds. Up dere..."

perfect day for the park

Looks like Steph did my work for me over at Toddlerblog. I don't think I have anything else I can add. Be sure to look at the pictures over there.

tales of being two

I usually try to write good things about Eliot on this website. But the ugly truth is that he's not always a model child. Every now and then we have a true two-year-old moment on our hands. Last night the two-year-old moment escalated to the point that, for the first time in his brief little life, Eliot was sent to his room. Alone.

It all started in the bathtub. Eliot was playing with a cup, innocently enough. Then, he got the bright idea to pour the water from the cup OUT of the bathtub. I stopped him just short of the edge of the tub. I looked him squarely in the eyes and said, "Eliot, if you pour that water out of the bathtub I will get you out, even if you pitch a fit." He looked at his cup and then back at me. After calculating the odds he made the decision to pour the water onto the bathroom floor. So, as I had warned, I got him out. He tried to get back in, but I wouldn't let him. Infuriated, he flung his wet, naked body about the bathroom, screaming. I was afraid he'd hurt himself so we moved to his bedroom and closed the door behind us. He banged on the door; I refused to open it. He wouldn't let me dry him off. He flung himself from side to side when I tried to diaper him. He threw all of his clean pajamas around the room. Apparently, he wanted wear the ones with CIRCLES. I haven't a clue which ones those are. But he screamed "CIRCLES" at the top of his lungs for several minutes, so I'm assuming. I picked up a book and asked if he wanted to read. "NOOOOO!" I put the book down. "BOOOOOOK!" I picked it back up. "NOOOOO!!!" I sat on the bed and said, "I'm just going to wait until you are finished. Then we can continue our evening". He screamed, "MOMMY STAND UUUUPPP!" Admittedly, this went on and on for longer than I should have let it.

Finally I decided that what we needed was a little Alone Time. I told him that I was going to leave him alone to scream and I would come back when he was ready to be nice. I left the room and closed the door. When I came back five minutes later he was sitting in the middle of the room waiting for me. "Are you ready to be sweet?" With pouted lip, he shook his head, "no." So I left for another five minutes. I came back with some cold water in his favorite cup. That appeased him enough that I could at least talk to him. This was an improvement. We sat in the floor for a few minutes then he calmly said, "Mommy hold you?" I was more than happy to oblige. He drank his cold water, snuggled up against me. He was sweaty, snotty and worn out. Brian came in to read books before bed. We had a few more mild setbacks, as he was still in the post-tantrum hiccup phase. But we finally read three books, turned out the light and said goodnight. I let him keep his favorite cup of water; I wasn't willing to fight another battle. He was asleep within ten minutes.